Back to the DMZ: S. Korea thanks Kansas veteran for his service

Korean War veteran Jerry Wohler, who also served as a Kansas Highway Patrol officer, talks about his time as a gunner in Korea, where he manned a 155mm howitzer. Wohler recently traveled to South Korea with other veterans to be honored by the South Korean government.

Jerry Wohler received a medal and the title of "Ambassador for Peace" while being honored by the South Korean government recently for his efforts in the Korean war. The proclamation he was given thanks him and other Korean War veterans for their "boundless sacrifices in helping us establish our free nation."

Korean War veteran Jerry Wohler talks about the demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel that separates North and South Korea on Wednesday afternoon at his home in Garnett. Wohler was a gunner in the Korean War, where he manned a 155mm howitzer.

Sixty-odd years ago, American artillery thundered in the South Korean hills, sometimes for 24 hours at a time, blasting enemy targets, Jerry Wohler, a Kansas veteran, recalled this week.

One hill, denuded by hundreds of exploding U.S. Army rounds, was tagged with the name Old Baldy, Wohler said.

Wohler, a sergeant, was the gunner commanding a 155mm howitzer that fired missiles against the enemy.

Soldiers, Marines, South Korean troops and allied forces were battling North Korean and Chinese soldiers.

Wohler's memories also include hearing incoming enemy artillery rounds — they made a buzzing sound as they passed overhead. Seeing wounded American infantrymen passing through to the rear. Watching Jeeps carrying stretchers bearing the wounded.

Fast forward to June 2014. Wohler, 82, landed in South Korea among a group of American veterans who received the thanks of Koreans grateful for their freedom when the Korean War ended in 1953.

South Korea "knocked my eyes out," Wohler said.

"Everything is modern," he said of the country that was war-ravaged and poor when he last saw it during the war.

Wohler was 19 when he was drafted into the Army in 1952.

"That was the best thing that ever happened to me," Wohler said of entering the Army. "I was a farm kid, and I hadn't been away from home. They shipped me halfway across the world."

First, he went through basic training in Fort Chaffee, Ark., then six more weeks of training to learn how to fire a howitzer.

He was assigned to the 31st Field Artillery unit in the 7th Infantry Division. He served in a crew firing a towed howitzer in a battery of five guns.

As the gunner, he sat on one of two trails, looking through a scope to line up the howitzer's shots. A forward observer would spot a target, then call the fire direction center near Wohler's howitzer.

In turn, the center instructed one gun to fire several rounds to fine-tune the settings for all five howitzers to fire.

Then all five would fire projectiles weighing about 83 pounds each. When Wohler said "fire," a soldier yanked a lanyard, discharging the howitzer.

Wohler never saw a round fired by his howitzer explode.

"We never knew what we were shooting at," Wohler said.

His battery, located five miles south of what became the demilitarized zone, remained in one place throughout his time in Korea.

Targets of the battery, which could fire shells 10 miles, were out of sight miles away, Wohler said.

"We never moved until the war was over," Wohler said.

"There were times we would shoot for 24 hours," he said. "That's when we needed more guys" to handle the heavy projectiles.

Wohler lost some hearing because of the artillery fire. Artillerymen weren't equipped with ear protection.

Several soldiers in his battery were wounded when the mess hall and motor pool were hit, Wohler said.

"We didn't have any fatalities," Wohler said. "We were very lucky."

Forward observers up at the front were "getting hit all the time," he said.

The weather was rugged for the soldiers living in tents in the Korean mountains. The temperature in winter "was really bad," sometimes reaching minus 40 degrees, and the summer was hot.

"In the monsoons, it would rain every day, several inches a day," he said.

After the war, Wohler became a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper, serving for 27 years. That included serving as a member of the governor's security detail for Govs. Robert Docking, Robert Bennett and John Carlin.

He then was the security director for the Expocentre for seven years.

Wohler and his wife, Jan, moved from Topeka to Garnett in 1993.

Wohler, a member of the Korean War Veterans Association, learned of that country's invitation to American veterans to travel to Korea. Jerry and Jan Wohler were in South Korea for a week ending June 28.

Wohler was one of 83 American veterans on the tour. Small children gave veterans cards thanking them for saving South Korea. Each veteran received a medal from South Korea noting his service during the war.

The veterans toured battlefields, cemeteries and the DMZ near where Wohler was based.

"That was the highlight of the trip," Wohler said. When he was in Korea during the war, a farmer used an ox to plow his field, and now the country has multiple lane highways and modern bridges, he said.

"I was shocked," Wohler said. "I couldn't imagine how much they had advanced. They have just done wonders. I respect the Korean people.

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The automotive industry in South Korea is the fifth-largest in the world measured by automobile unit production and the fifth-largest by automobile export volume.

While its initial operations were merely the assembling of parts imported from foreign companies, Korea is today among the most advanced automobile-producing countries in the world. Annual domestic output first exceeded one million units in 1988. In the 1990s, the industry manufactured numerous in-house models, demonstrating not only its capabilities in terms of design, performance, and technology, but also signalling its coming of age.

It shouldn't be any surprise that Korea has "multiple lane highways and modern bridges", as 60 years has passed. Some people live under a rock.

It is about time some of the Korean vets got recognized. Jerry Wohler and all the other veterans who served in the war and DMZ put their lives on the line and deserve our thanks. Lots of people think that the DMZ was a nothing place to be. But shooting happened there a lot of the time. Special forces from the north tried to sneak in behind the DMZ and got into a fire fight with the men serving there. Then there was being on watch and seeing the military serving the North killing people trying to get into the South and not being allowed to shoot back. No the DMZ was not a picnic.